


Right Till the End

by NotASpaceAlien



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Armageddon, Gen, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASpaceAlien/pseuds/NotASpaceAlien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The final battle is not Heaven vs Hell, but Heaven and Hell vs Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Till the End

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a contest that never seemed to materialize. On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/139250701595/right-till-the-end

_"For my money, the really big one will be all of Us against all of Them."_

_"What? You mean Heaven and Hell against humanity?"_

* * *

A man stood on the crest of a hill, clad in shining silver armor, his hair bouncing in shoulder-length blond curls, a sword clinking by his left side.  His name was Adam Young, although by now many people called him Life, and he was centuries old.  An enormous war dog lay by his side, panting and observing everything with red eyes.  Three figures were fanned out behind him, likewise resplendent in their armor.  

“Four hundred years,” said one, a woman with lustrous red hair down to her waist.  Four hundred years.  That was how long had it had taken for them to try destroying the planet again.

Four hundred years the Earth had flourished under the guidance of the New Horsepersons.  With the old ones vanquished, humanity blossomed into prosperity, rocketing forwards in ways no one had ever imagined.  Heaven and Hell had observed them with a certain amount of trepidation.  Not even Satan himself had been able to curb Adam Young once he had been unleashed upon the world.  Both sides watched humans get more and more powerful, more and more prosperous, closer and closer to as perfect as the imperfect world could be.  They encroached upon utopia under their new leaders, who only called themselves the Them but had been given many different names across the world.  Under the protection of someone so powerful and released from the supernatural forces that had been plaguing them since the dawn of time, there was almost nothing humanity failed to accomplish.

Finally, a human invented a weapon that could kill an angel, and Heaven and Hell realized Earth was no longer a mere passive battlefield to host their ongoing contest of good vs evil.  For the first time in Creation, Heaven and Hell had a common enemy, and it was enough to unite them.

The woman’s fingers tapped on the hilt of her sword.  “We knew this was coming for four hundred hears,” said Peace. 

“Do you think our preparations will be enough?” said the second, a man dressed in black armor with a neatly trimmed goatee; his name was Plenty.

“We can certainly put up a good fight,” said the third. Health was the tallest of them all, broad-shouldered and strong. 

Adam was chewing on his tongue.  He examined the sight across the field from them, where the collective armies of Heaven and Hell had gathered, light and dark figures intermingled as hazy specks across the distance.  He was not optimistic.  He was also not a liar.  So he remained silent, except to speculate aloud that it looked like someone over there was trying to start a fight.

There was suddenly a whirlwind across the way; great clouds of angels and demons took to the air, swirling like a flock of birds. Even from this distance Adam could hear the rush of wings and the outrage and insults being hurled.

The target of the anger became apparent soon enough.  Two figures had broken off from the flock, one with sleek, dark wings, the other with broad, tan ones, weaving desperately in an attempt to outmaneuver the others. Once the miscreants were about halfway across no-man’s land, the mob relented, afraid to get any closer to the rebellious Antichrist.

These two were a bit braver.  They swooped down together, kicking up a cloud of dust as they landed, still a ways off.  Adam could see the one with dark wings was dressed in black armor studded with bleached bones and skulls, and the other in burnished, brilliant armor.  Their attire seemed ill-fitting somehow, as though they were not meant to be fighting, and neither seemed very comfortable.

The dust cloud settled, and the angel and the demon did not draw any closer.

The hound beside him perked up its ears and hauled itself to its feet, wagging its tail cautiously.  For the first time in months, Adam smiled.  He sang out, amplifying his voice with a thought, “You two need something?”

The angel cupped his hands to his mouth to be heard over the distance, still too afraid to get close enough for normal conversation.  “We want to change sides!”

“Don’t let them,” said Health.

“They might turn on us in battle,” said Peace.

“They have no motivation to help us,” said Plenty.

Adam waved his hand, a grin breaking out on his face.  “Wensley, Pepper, Brian.  Don’t you recognize them?”  He strode forwards, almost skipping, unexpected joy brought to his heart by seeing old allies in unexpected places.  “Aziraphale!  Crowley!” he boomed, throwing his arms wide, ready for an embrace.  “Come over!”

They did so, and as they moved towards him, the two linked hands with much more tenderness than was fit for beings of their stations.

* * *

The time drew near.

Aziraphale shredded his corporation and reverted to his true form, a fearsome living creature radiating soft blue light that made his body fade into the air instead of being sharply defined, eyes of every conceivable shape, size, and color pivoting every which way as his enormous wings kept him aloft.  One of his heads had a mane made of fire, which crackled audibly even over the sound of the troops assembled below.

Crowley could still pull on his old angelic form.  It took a good deal of energy, but he thought they could use the effect it might have on morale.  He was not as impressive as Aziraphale.  He never had been, even in Heaven, but he felt prepared as he hovered silently in the air, multiple pairs of wings beating out of synch, all his arms holding daggers or knives or short swords or broadswords.

This was the face humanity prepared as its ultimate defense: the gathered forces of soldiers, led by one Hellspawn and his favored friends and pet, one demon cloaked as an angel for confidence, and a Cherub-turned-Principality  that had taken its job to guide and defend humanity a bit too much to heart.

Health drew his sword, holding it out.  “For humanity.”

One of Aziraphale’s heads let out a massive shriek, the hawk head, its beak cracked open for a shrill and ferocious cry, distorted and predatory.

Peace drew her sword and touched it to Health’s. “For us.”

Aziraphale’s lion head distended in anger and bared its fangs, letting out a roar that reverberated  across the distance, unsettling some of the demons on the other side, and a few of the angels too.

Plenty added his sword to the others.  “For the future generations.”

Aziraphale’s third head let out a deep lowing, the sound of a furious bull with polished horns sharpened for use.

Finally, Adam touched his sword to the tops of the others’, and added, “For Earth.”

Aziraphale’s last head let out a scream with a human voice, a battle cry that rippled through the humans below him, taken up and carried through them as they surged forwards with weapons drawn.

* * *

The humans lost. Probably, deep down, everyone knew that the humans were going to lose.  But it could not be said that they did not indeed put up a good fight.

The field that had previously been no-man’s land and briefly became any man’s land was now no man’s land again.  The light of the dying sun, spreading crimson flames across the warped sky, fell on scores and scores of bodies, their blood saturating the ground beneath them.

There was only one figure moving in this wasteland, stumbling in the rapidly diminishing light, using both hands to hold his organs in, his yellow eye scanning the corpses littering the ground.

Dusk was falling for the last time; soon the sun would set, and never rise again.  And in the mounting cold, the notes of a song rang out.

“Ooo…you’re all…I sssee…”

They were not sung without a considerable amount of difficulty, but the halting and faltering melody was clear.

“Whenever this…world is...cruel to me…”

Crowley’s angelic form had burned away long ago; he had run out of energy to sustain it early in the fight and reverted to something more beastly, an infernal Naga that would have been frightening had it not been so close to death.  Now there were no feet thumping on the muddy ground, but one enormous scaly belly, sliding easily upon blood to grease it.

“Oooh…you make me…live…now…honey…”

He was half-blind, the eye that had been gouged out now filled with the maggots that writhed all over him, up to the base of his horns and his claws and the spikes jutting out from his spine.  And the light was fading fast, but he could still see well enough to scan the bodies on the ground for the one he was looking for.

“I’ve been…wandering round…ssstill come…back to…you…”

There were a few dead angels on the ground, fallen and otherwise, but the bodies littering the earth were almost entirely human, because God loves his creation but he is also Righteous and Just and Vengeful.  But it made the object of his search easier to pick out.

His strength was failing him; he let his torso drop to the ground and began to use one hand to help slide him along, keeping the other pressed to his midsection and feeling his slimy viscera dripping through his fingers as they fought to indulge gravity.

 _There_.  Half-buried in human remains lay the outline of one angel, its body twisted and broken but still recognizable.  Crowley dragged himself alongside him and looked down on the still form.  They had promised each other they wouldn’t get separated during the battle, but it had been in the way everyone lies about things beyond their control and everyone knows it’s a lie but lets the façade stand because it is comforting.

“You’re my s…ssunshine..and I want you to know…that my feelings are true…I r…eally…l…”

He managed to use his free hand to drag the angel out from under the other bodies.  It really was impossible to tell if he was right side up or not, but Aziraphale had a head on every side so it didn’t matter much. His faces were all frozen into expressions of surprise and pain.  Crowley lowered himself down, giving him a kiss on each of the faces within his reach, and then flopped over next to him.

The sky was dark now, a swatch of blackened purple dotted with pinpricks of light.  The moon was nowhere to be seen.  It was silent except for Crowley’s own ragged breathing. Aziraphale’s hand was cold as he took it and squeezed it and let himself hope for a reciprocal squeeze, which was not forthcoming.

“I really…love…you…  You’re my best friend…”

That was as much of that song as he could remember.  He vainly searched for the rest of it within his memories, but he could only come up with tangled, vague snatches of different songs slurred while drunk, over dinner, in the back room of a bookshop, or in a black car.

The stars began to wink out, blackness encroaching upon the earth from the vastness of space.  Crowley could feel his body failing him; his limbs were going dead, he could no longer use his hand to press his organs in.  Darkness was creeping into the corners of his vision, and each labored breath felt like it could be his last.

He lay there, looking up at the stars as they were extinguished one by one, feeling the earth on his back and his angel in his hand, grateful he had managed to fall into this configuration before losing his ability to move.  He wondered where immortal beings went when they died.  It was not supposed to happen, as far as he was aware, but here they were.   Wherever it was, he hoped it was somewhere nice, but he was not getting his hopes up. He no longer had the energy to be scared, though; a sense of numbness was overtaking him.

He could feel the world dissolving, the wretched, corrupted creation finally being destroyed, and as the last star died in the sky, he managed to choke out one small melody. “Cause friendsss…will…be…friendsss…”


End file.
